Are flies more cunning than I gave them credit for?
Asked by
rebbel (
35553
)
July 18th, 2011
While reading my book or newspaper outside I am visited by (house)flies all the time these last several weeks.
They annoy me.
Now I found that most of them, most of the time, land on my shoulder or upper arm, when there is plenty other bare skin available.
When I grab the fly sweeper (is that a word?) they seem to notice it because from that moment on they quit their attacks.
Until I lose concentration and put the sweeper away.
Next thing I know they’ll come back again.
So, are they visual that good?
Can they think or reason?
Do they communicate (warn each other for the dangerous fly sweeper)?
And do they prefer the shoulder because that seems to be a difficult place to reach for me?
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12 Answers
I think having 100 eyes helps. haha
I catch ‘em by hand and release them, they get confused on the sheer curtains in my living room, they cannot get behind them to the window, so, I just grab ‘em in the folds and toss ‘em out the door. Once in awhile one gets whacked if it’s extra savvy and driving me nuts.
For living within a few hundred yards of 4 sheep, 3 donkeys, 2 mules, a draft horse, a Llama and geese, not many flies on my mountain. :-D
Flies, because of their compound eyes, I think, basically see in slow motion. Imagine standing on a road and you see a truck 100 m away, moving to wards you at the breakneck speed of 1 m per second. How likely is it that you would get hit by that truck when you have 1 minute and 40 seconds to get out of the way?
I have one of those fly catchers in my room (a long strip of tape covered with glue, hanging from my ceiling) The flies do not avoid it, despite all the other fly corpses that they can see on there.
Swatter. We call it a fly swatter.
I’ve noticed the same. A fly will bug me for so long, until I get pissed off and get into attack mode. Unless it’s confused, say, trying to fly through a window, it will seemingly disappear until I calm down and put the fly swatter down. It seems to me that a fly can sense hostility, agitation and aggressiveness, and will vanish when it perceives these dangerous signs.
Ready for a bit more bug weirdness? I shoot them with #16 rubberbands. I am absolutely deadly at 2 meters or less.
It takes many years of practice to achieve this level of proficiency. Who says I didn’t learn anything in college?
@worriedguy I worked with a woman who could do that, take out flies with a rubber band. She was remarkably accurate and that always impressed me. Now you’ve impressed me, once again.
@worriedguy
I used to drop glue on them, incinerate them with a lighter or shoot them with a softair gun.
@worriedguy
Haha.. the hidden talents of fluther members.
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@lillycoyote I am extremely accurate. Someone once challenged me to shoot a vitamin pill off my 4 year old’s head. Like William Tell, I accepted the challenge but had two rubberbands around my wrist. My son said he could feel the wind as Wilma Flintstone shattered on the floor.
I can also shot mosquitoes out of the air. It is a great parlor trick. Sometimes you just wing them and they sputter to the ground like a Sopwith Camel after a run-in with the Red Baron. Very satisfying.
@ragingloli. I’ve used a battery operated airsoft BB gun to nail roaches. Let loose a five round burst and you can cut them right in half.
@worriedguy
You are so CRACKING ME UP! Wilma Flintstone! LOL
Well, time to perfect tiny fly slingshots, you can experiment with using different ammo like dried lentils, beans, fish tank gravel or BB’s haha
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